tween the two; and the same cruel king, who broke the legs and crushed the thumbs of his Scottish Presbyterian subjects with all the zest of an inquisitor, was glad to seize an occasion for setting free the Quakers who crowded the jails of England. This was because Quakers and Catholics differed so far, though in opposite directions, from the opinions generally held by the English people that they were alike condemned by everybody. Even the warmest advocates of toleration were wont to make an exception in the case of Catholics and Quakers, who for different reasons were regarded as hardly within the pale of Christianity. Hence Quakers and Catholics had, for the moment, an interest in common, as opposed to the intermediate Christian sects, and hence, both as duke and afterward as king, the Catholic James found it worth his while to befriend the chief of the Quakers. It was a singular alliance, that between the man for whom such words as pity and clemency were meaningless terms, and the man whose faith in the ethical teachings of Jesus was so genuine that he was eager to see them embodied in civil legislation and made the cornerstone of a new Christian state. It is strange to think of the champion of truthfulness and toleration as a Jacobite, leagued in political bonds of sympathy with a family whose very name has come to be almost a synonym for bigotry and falsehood. It is this singular alliance which once kindled the wrath of the hasty prejudiced and impetuous Macaulay, and led him to bring some foul charges against Penn's integrity. Macaulay's charges. The Maids Of Macaulay's charges, the only one that needs mention 1 is that which relates to the of Taunton. affair of the Maids of Taunton. When the handsome Duke of Monmouth was making his silly attempt to dethrone James II., and on a bright June day of the year 1685 rode into Taunton with much bustle and parade, he was met in the market-place by a procession of school-girls, from ten or twelve to sixteen years, all in their prettiest summer gowns. They gave him a royal standard richly embroidered, and the good schoolmistress gave him a Bible, and all felt, no doubt, that they had done what was right. A few weeks later, when Monmouth had begged for life in vain, and the ghastly skulls of his adherents were bleaching over many a city gate, and the execrable Jeffreys was holding his Bloody Assizes, some of the queen's maids of honour asked the king for permission to threaten these poor children, of whose frolic they had heard, in order to extort blackmail from their parents. James granted the infamous permission. The story of the consequent distress and misery at Taunton almost makes one ashamed of belonging to the human race. One young girl was snatched from home and thrown into a dungeon, where she died of fever. Another 1 They were conclusively refuted by W. E. Forster, in his preface to a new edition of Clarkson's Life of Penn, London, 1850; and by Hepworth Dixon, in his Life of Penn, London, 1851 ; and others. After Macaulay had replied to his critics, the matter was again taken up and treated with consummate ability, by John Paget, in his New Examen, London, 1861. Mr. Paget's evidence and arguments are absolutely conclusive, and leave Macaulay in a very sorry plight. mustered courage to go into court and declare her innocence of evil intent and beg the hyena Jeffreys for mercy. His only answer was to put on one of his hideous frowns and shout, "Take her away, jailer!" She was led away shivering and sobbing, and died within a few hours, literally frightened to death. Out of such sufferings the queen's ladies tried to make £7000, but were obliged to desist long before their greed was satisfied. Macaulay's blunder. Now, when Macaulay found that the name of the solicitor who represented the maids of honour in this devil's work was "Mr. Penne," it seemed to him to furnish welcome proof that anybody who stood high in favour with James II. must be more or less of a knave. So he seized the occasion for inculcating a moral lesson for the benefit of all admirers of the founder of Pennsylvania. "The maids of honour," says Macaulay, discreditable "requested William Penn to act for them, and Penn accepted the commission. Yet it should seem that a little of the pertinacious scrupulosity which he had often shown about taking off his hat would not have been altogether out of place on this occasion." Macaulay went on to speculate ingeniously as to the arguments by which Penn might have succeeded in silencing the voice of conscience. Many of us can still remember how Macaulay's readers, more than forty years ago, were astounded by this grave accusation. But when, after more careful inquiry, it turned out that the "Mr. Penne" in question was not the 1 Macaulay's History of England, cabinet edition, ii. 235, great Quaker at all, but a certain George Penne, a notorious pettifogger and pardon-broker at the vile Stuart court, the historian's moral lesson lost much of its point, and one could not help feeling that once more in this dull world there had been some very vigorous barking up the wrong tree! None of the charges brought against William Penn have been adequately supported; and so far was his character from deteriorating through his intimacy with James II., that at no time in his life does he seem more honest, brave, and lovable than during the years, so full of trouble for him, that intervened between the accession of James and the accession of Anne. As for the king, Penn always maintained that, with all his faults, he was not so black as people painted him; and this we may readily admit. A man who had and retained such friends as Nicolls and Dongan could not have Penn was not awake to James's treacherous qualities. been entirely devoid of redeeming traits. But there was one side of James's character to which Penn was not sufficiently awake. Unlike other Stuarts in many respects, James was as false as any of the race, but his treacherousness was more or less concealed under an appearance of honest and awkward dul ness. One would not look for Machiavelism in such a dense atmosphere. Nevertheless, James was able to impress Penn with the belief that in extending royal favour to Quakers he had the interests of religious liberty at heart, and, so long as Penn was thus hoodwinked, his demeanour towards the king was liable to be such as to excite the suspicion of patriots, who realized how danger ous that personage really was. When the great Quaker came to be known as a royal favourite, and scores of people crowded his doorsteps, in order to obtain through him royal aid for their schemes, he was at once placed in a position that could hardly fail to be misunderstood. Bishops. The difficulty of his position was well illustrated in the famous case of the Seven Bishops. It should be distinctly understood that in The affair 1687 England was in serious danger, and of the Seven that the interests of civil and religious liberty were gravely imperilled. All over Europe the Counter-Reformation had made alarming progress; and the ground gained by the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, seemed for the moment lost again. The most recent great event was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and Louis XIV. seemed as formidable as in later days Napoleon at Tilsit. Under these circumstances the intense anti-Catholic excitement in England was natural; it was one of the forms assumed by the instinct of self-preservation. The new king of England intended to destroy Protestantism, and civil liberty with it, wherever he could. To achieve his ends he relied ultimately upon military force to be summoned from Ireland, and aid to be extended by the king of France, as well as upon the development of a strong party loyal to himself in England. For this latter purpose he offered favours to Dissenters, hoping to secure their support until the time when he should feel strong enough to desert and betray them. Hence his attempt, under the hypocritical pretence of liberality in matters of |